Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry
PRE-MEETING SPRING
MARCH 2012
CIRCULAR LETTER #621
P.O. Box 570218 • Dallas, Texas 75357-0218 972-613-0985 • Fax: 972-613-5532 • www.ourgap.org
Message From the President Do you have a GAP story to tell? I do. Like me, I am sure many of you have had compelling personal and professional relationships and experiences at GAP. Why tell your stories? As we all know, GAP is actively seeking to increase its public profile by using contemporary communication methods to get both GAP publications and other projects, as well as GAP’s name, out to a wider world. Toward that end, and as reported in previous circular letters, we have engaged Catchafire, an organization that has matched GAP up (and will be matching us up) with experts who can help brand our organization for professional and lay audiences. Toward that end, and with the support of Paul Fink’s Committee on Planning, Marketing and Communications (PM&C), Josh Gibson has taken a leadership role in this project. He is now working on a storytelling project with a consultant, Dana Rideout. What Dana and Josh need now are GAP members’ own stories about the ways GAP has been visionary and/or shaped the practice of psychiatry. They also need stories (and have gotten a few) about what GAP has meant to its members as professionals as a way to help reestablish a higher profile for GAP within psychiatry. Josh has already begun telling one such story: “In 1946, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry’s Committee on Therapy issued an influential report speaking out against the ‘promiscuous and indiscriminate use of electroshock therapy.’ That brief report summarized the evidence for use of electro-shock therapy, cautioned practitioners about complications and hazards, and importantly called for an end to the ‘widespread abuses’ of the therapy at the time, including: a. It’s use in office practice b. It’s indiscriminate administration to patients in any and all diagnostic categories c. It’s immediate use to the exclusion of adequate psychotherapeutic attempts d. It’s use as the sole therapeutic agent, to the neglect of a complete psychiatric program Today, more than 65 years later, the standard of care for electroconvulsive therapy (performed in a hospital setting, not as a first-line treatment, and only for specific diagnoses in the context of a broader treatment program) reflects the wisdom of that initial report.” This is just a start. What we need from GAP members now are at least twenty (20) good stories that can help establish ourselves (to those who do not know us) as a credible think tank. Keep in mind, however, that there are many different ways to tell a story about why GAP is important. For example, one possible kind of story would tell why your committee’s current work (and its relevance to current issues in and out of psychiatry) is important. Feel free to contact either Josh (josh.gibson@ucsf.edu) or myself (jackdreschermd@gmail.com) if you have any questions about how to tell a story and how to get your GAP story out to a wider world. On another front, GAP’s newest Committee on Administration & Leadership was initiated out of the recognition that psychiatrists in administrative leadership roles are facing multiple challenges, along with potential opportunities, due to local, state, and federal actions. The Committee plans to serve as a think-tank offering the professional community opinion pieces and position papers, as well as more substantial scholarly papers and other publications. The Committee, using Survey Monkey, is conducting a survey of major leadership organizations, that includes GAP members, to determine what are the most pressing needs of administrators in leadership positions. The Committee plans to analyze its’ survey’s results at